The designs for a modern 200-foot-tall hotel and condo building to rise at 447 Battery Street, a site which is currently occupied by the three-story Cort Furniture Rental building at the corner of Battery and Merchant, have been drawn and formally submitted to San Francisco’s Planning Department for approval.

As designed by Heller Manus Architects for the Montgomery Realty Group, the proposed 19-story building includes a total of 182 hotel rooms over a 4,700 square foot restaurant and an underground garage for 24 cars.

And eight (8) condos would be spread across the top five floors of the tapered tower, with a single 4,300-square-foot penthouse and two private terraces across the top two.

But those plans have since been kicked to the curb.

Instead, the project team, which still includes Heller Manus, is now planning to save the façade of the existing building and construct a 15-story “addition,” an approach which would still yield a new 200-foot-tall tower on the site.

The condo component has been dropped from the proposed development as well. And as newly envisioned, the 18-story tower would now yield a total of 198 hotel rooms, ranging in size from 300 to 628 square feet, with a basement garage for 24 cars and two restaurants and bars, one fronting Merchant Street (which would be redeveloped as part of the project) and another across the tower’s top floor (with a private terrace).

And in terms of timing, assuming the project is approved, the project team is now expected to break ground at the end of next year (2020).

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Comments from “Plugged-In” Readers

Another hotel project instead of condos – for the medium term future building new condos in SF is financially quite risky. Falling condo prices, stagnant or falling population and the highest construction costs in the world.

It won’t be certain until the revised January 2019 population figure is released. The January 2018 population was revised down by 3873. That is less than the growth in 2018. If the January 2019 figure has the same downward revision the population on January 2019 will be less than it was on January 2018. Best case scenario is a stagnant population and that is a negative indicator.

Given the huge demand for hotel rooms in the city, a couple hundred extra rooms added to the inventory amounts to a drop in the pocket, and would have little to zero impact on hotel room rates. I very much doubt Le Meridien or Pyramid Center would waste their time trying to battle this project, and even if they did, there is very little they could do about it

People often have to stay near airport for SF conferences due to hotel shortage, which leads to some conferences not choosing SF( in addition to the rampant crime, open drug use and street zombies). More hotels might actually help all

I’m going with curtain #2: no, not every facade – or two – is worth saving, but with some it makes sense: it’s simple and durable, the brick makes a nice contrast to the glass and anodized/blackened metal of the tower, and it’s one of a very limited number of buildings remaining from the era when this was the produce market.

And five stars for the rendering: the background buildings have been treated for what they are – background – rather than poorly drawn attempts at realism, and the detailed look into the corner rooms is kewl! (sadly there’re no ideas offered for TV placement, but one can’t have everything).

I’m not mad at this design. I’d rather support the blatant old-with-new-on-top approach than some sort of drunken post-modernist design—esp when the architects are not trying to play matchy-matchy with the existing structure/facade.

No, hotels and office buildings do not have to provide BMRs…the entire burden falls on the new residents who will buy the condos/rent the apartments. And thanks to Mr Peskin, the BMR percentage doesn’t pencil, not that he cares or did a financial feasibility study. Another case of the Progressives stopping provision of housing, not helping it.

Developers actually shoulder the full burden of BMR fees in the form of lower profit margins/returns and will continue to charge as much as the market will bear for every unit built, regardless of their cost bases; units aren’t priced/sold on a cost-plus basis.

That being said, affordable housing fees can certainly impact the market in the form of less supply/choice if said fees result in fewer units being built due to the aforementioned (lack of) penciling and economic realities.

But again, the direct burden remains on developers and the owners of developable property.